Section 2 · The Common Defense
📡Ch. 8 — Media Agencies
USAGM / CPB · 14 tracked
Consolidate redundant VOA and grantee language services
Proposed
Mandate calls fiscal consolidation a cornerstone, citing overlapping Mandarin (VOA/RFA) and Farsi (VOA/RFE-RL) services as unnecessary and counterproductive.
Protect Office of Cuba Broadcasting from closure and RIFs
Proposed
Mandate treats OCB/Martí as a critical truth channel threatened by Biden-era closure threats, budget constraints, and reductions in force, and frames hostility to OCB as mismanagement to reverse.
End RFE/RL Hungarian Szabad Európa service targeting a NATO ally
Proposed
Mandate says RFE/RL’s Hungarian-language Szabad Európa falls outside charter by targeting a democratically elected pro-American European and NATO ally.
Put VOA/USAGM under NSC and/or State Global Public Affairs command
Proposed
Mandate argues VOA was most effective under War/State supervision and urges NSC chain-of-command and/or direct State Office of Global Public Affairs supervision so taxpayer media tells America’s story with directive Secretary of State board authority.
Keep USAGM personnel security with DoD and OPM—never re-delegate
Proposed
Mandate says USAGM must never again be entrusted with delegated personnel-security and suitability authority after OPM/ODNI findings of falsified clearances, and that those responsibilities must remain with DoD and OPM where Trump appointees transferred them.
Defund and disestablish USAGM if unreformed anti-U.S. messaging continues
Proposed
Mandate concludes that if the agency’s de facto aim remains competing with anti-U.S. talking points that parrot adversaries, it is an unacceptable taxpayer burden and should be defunded and disestablished.
Suspend Open Technology Fund and fully reinstate Office of Internet Freedom
Proposed
Mandate labels OTF a wasteful opaque grantee that usurped OIF’s budget and urges full OIF reinstatement for agency/congressional oversight of internet-freedom spending.
Keep Firewall Regulation revoked so leadership can oversee false or mission-violating content
Proposed
Mandate celebrates Trump-era revocation of the midnight Firewall Regulation that barred agency management from content oversight—even of false content—and treats restoration of management oversight as necessary reform.
End USAGM J-1 visa use for foreign journalists; require I visas
Proposed
Mandate says USAGM improperly uses J-1 cultural-exchange visas instead of I visas for foreign journalists, enabling permanent-residency paths and displacing qualified Americans.
Rebuild shortwave transmission capacity over web-only strategy
Proposed
Mandate warns that deemphasizing shortwave for web technologies is strategically dangerous if undersea cables or power fail in major conflict, and calls upgrades/improvements to USAGM’s global shortwave capability.
Cut USAGM operations below $700 million with consolidation
Proposed
Mandate asserts properly managed USAGM operations can run on less than $700 million per year versus prior $800M+ spending with little oversight, tying cuts to anti-waste consolidation.
Defund Corporation for Public Broadcasting by refusing any CPB appropriation
Proposed
Mandate says every Republican President since Nixon failed to strip CPB funding and that the 47th President must finally get it done—telling Congress he will not sign spending bills containing a penny for CPB.
End CPB’s two-year advance appropriations insulation
Proposed
Mandate argues CPB’s advance appropriations unjustifiably insulate it from Congress’s power of the purse and should be ended.
Instruct FCC to strip NPR/PBS affiliates of NCE status and reserved-band privileges
Proposed
Mandate says NPR/PBS should lose noncommercial educational denomination—including reserved FM band access and fee exemptions—because they are allegedly noneducational and run de facto ads.